Financial Planning Part 2, or Am I Doing the Right Thing?

In January a mess-up involving reordering checks made my mom aware that she had not received a bank statement in a while. By this time not only had I paid for the lawyer out of her account, but I was also paying for the monthly Lifeline fee and her lunches from the senior center out of the same account. It seemed imperative that she not see the statements in order for her to keep having these services.

Remember, my mom thinks there is nothing at all wrong with her. The only reason she has Lifeline in her house and accepts the lunches that are delivered is because she believes they are free. I’ve had to go through a bit of trickery to insure that she be kept in the dark about who is really paying, but so far it has worked.

When she went to the bank to ask about her statements, she didn’t talk to the person there who knows all about the situation and who would have tried to stall her while she let me know what was going on. She talked to someone who told her that her statements were being sent to me.

Not only did she find out about the statements, but she also noticed that her balance wasn’t what she thought it should be (the fee to the lawyer was several thousand dollars). Ever since I had made the changes to her account I worried every single day about what would happen when she found out. I knew the chances were good that she would realize she wasn’t getting her statements at some point because she is still pretty sharp in many ways.

I had what I felt was a crisis on my hands. I wanted so badly to be honest with my mom (see “Lying” below), but I knew that if I told her everything it was likely to end with her canceling the Lifeline service and her lunches. At first she was more upset about the “missing money” than about the bank statements. After stalling for a couple days I made a decision. I decided to tell her that I had implemented an “asset protection plan” and had moved the missing money to an account in my town. At the same time I planned to move more of her savings to a bank here in order to be able to continue paying for services without her knowledge. I’m also planning for the time when I can find someone who can keep her company, drive her places, and help her with housework a few days a week. Because I eventually plan to move her here, I also want to set aside funds to cover the moving costs.

My mother was satisfied with the explanation of the asset protection plan – for a few days. Then all hell broke loose.

No matter how angry she gets, she knows that I would never steal from her. But she cannot understand how I could make these decisions without first talking to her about it. She thinks I’m protecting her money so that I can inherit it. She also senses that I’m taking control of things that she believes she is still able to handle.

For three months now she’s told me that she will never feel the same way about me, that I stabbed her in the heart. She never calls me “honey” or tells me she loves me anymore. (When I visited her last month, there were some moments of real warmth and affection, in between the temper tantrums. But now she seems not to remember that I was there and has returned to her cool ways.)

At times she’s so sad and miserable, or angry and full of rage, that I seriously question whether I did the right thing. Sometimes I can feel very keenly that I have broken her heart.

Is it better to deceive her to keep her safe in her home while causing her tremendous emotional distress or to allow her to continue to make her own decisions, to allow her to feel in control of her life, while putting her health and safety in peril?

I no longer know.